Since the Covedale Center for the Performing Arts opened back in 2002, it’s become the go-to place for onstage entertainment on the West Side, including the summertime Cincinnati Young People’s Theatre, which provides theater opportunities for high school kids from across the city. The facility is owned and operated by Cincinnati Landmark Productions (CLP), recently inducted into the Cincinnati Entertainment Awards Hall of Fame on Aug. 30. CLP also operates the Showboat Majestic.

The Covedale Center has been a busy place, but the converted 1940s movie house had minimal backstage space — until now. After several years of tight quarters, no running water or bathrooms, the facility has been renovated and expanded: There is now a rehearsal studio, a green room, two dressing rooms, shop space and two handicapped-accessible bathrooms. This evening marks the grand opening of the addition with a reception for VIPs and local media.

There's nothing unlucky about Friday the 13th in the theater world. (Theater folks have enough other superstitions anyway.) So you have lots of excellent choices this weekend, from the very funny The Foreigner at the Playhouse (just opened) to the satiric Timon of Athens at Cincinnati Shakespeare (see review here).

If you want a heavy-duty drama, try Bent at New Stage Collective (it's about the mistreatment of gays in Nazi concentration camps; see my review here). And if you want to see some of the talent that keeps spilling out of UC's College-Conservatory of Music, I recommend that you stop by the Over-the-Rhine nightclub Below Zero tonight after 10 p.m.

A lot of Stephen
Sondheim’s shows are kind of heady, but Into the Woods
— an intersection of a bunch of fairytale characters — is perhaps
the most approachable and especially when it’s given the kind of
colorful, overflowing with talent treatment that you’ll find for
the next two weekends at UC’s College-Conservatory of Music (that’s
longer than usual, but tickets will still be in short supply, I
suspect). Act I is about “happily every after,” while Act II
explores what comes next. Twenty years ago, when an endowed chair in
musical theater (the first in the nation) was established at CCM,
professor and director Aubrey Berg staged the show; to honor the gift
of Patricia Corbett, he’s mounting a new production at the theater
named in her honor. I thought last fall’s Oklahoma at CCM
was a wonderful production, but this one, which I saw open on
Thursday evening, is even better, with an incredible array of talent
and wildly inventive staging. Tickets: 513-556-4183.

A year ago Cincinnati
Shakespeare had a big hit with a stage adaptation of Jane Austen’s
Pride & Prejudice. Looks like they’ve done it again with
another adaptation of the 19th-century novelists Sense
& Sensibility. This time it’s the sisters Dashwood, one
rational and one emotional. The roles are wonderfully played by Kelly
Mengelkoch (as the reserved, reasonable Elinor) and Sara Clark (as
the willful and romantic Marianne), and they’re surrounded by
delightfully drawn supporting characters — and a story of romance
and domestic intrigue. I gave the production a Critic’s Pick. I’m told that several performances are already
sold out (it’s onstage through March 18), so if you hope to see
this one, you should line your tickets up right away. Tickets:
513-381-2273.

In case you wanted a
short course in shows by Sondheim, the next few weeks is your big
opportunity. In addition to Into the Woods at CCM, you can catch the
touring production of West Side Story at the Aronoff (it opens
a two-week run on Tuesday), a show that Sondheim wrote the lyrics for
when he was 26 (he’s about to turn 82). And a week from now, the
Cincinnati Playhouse will start previews of Merrily We Roll Along,
a show from 1981 that was a flop at first, but now is praised as one
of his greatest musical accomplishments. It’s about the joys and
frustrations of success from the perspective of people involved in
creating musical theater. It will be on the Marx Stage through March
31.

Andrew Bovell’s
Speaking in Tonguesis a complicated noir-ish tale of marital
deceit and cryptic crime that unfolds more clearly because of its
accomplished four-actor cast, including local professionals Bruce
Cromer (who’s played roles as varied as Ebenezer Scrooge for the
Playhouse to King Lear for Cincinnati Shakespeare) and Amy Warner (a
regular at Ensemble Theatre and Cincinnati Shakespeare). The show is
a fascinating piece of theater that takes work to watch, follow and
absorb. I suppose that some casual theatergoers will be put off by
it, but if you like challenging drama and multi-layered acting,
you’ll leave the theater with their gears spinning. I gave Speaking
in Tongues a Critic’s Pick. Through March 4. Box office: 513-421-3888.

Know Theater’s
“comedy of anxiety” by Allison Moore, Collapse,
opens with the collapse of a highway bridge over the Mississippi
River in Minneapolis. But it’s about all kinds of things falling
down — the economy, relationships. This is the kind of edgy script
Know Theatre is known for, funny but meaningful. I gave the
production a Critic’s Pick because it combines heart and humor.
Collapse is presented with comic finesse and fine acting,
especially by local professional actress Annie Fitzpatrick. Know’s
best work of the season. Through March 3. Tickets: 513-300-5669.

Planning for next
season? Check out my blog from last Sunday about what Broadway in Cincinnati will be presenting, including the
zany Blue Man Group.

Each week in Stage
Door, Rick Pender offers theater tips for the weekend, often with a few pieces
of theater news.

If another Cincinnati theater critic actually attended the Cincinnati Fringe, she might know that Performance Gallery’s fricative was not a production from “last year’s” Fringe, as she posted recently in her blog. It was, in fact, three years ago when it won a 2008 Cincinnati Entertainment Award for Best Alternative Theatre Performance.

OK, so it's Memorial Day weekend, and theater-going might not be what you have in mind. How about this? If you're heading downtown for the feeding frenzy at Taste of Cincinnati (and what true Cincinnatian isn't?), you can take a quick side trip to Jackson Street in Over-the-Rhine to pick up some tickets or a pass for the eighth annual Cincinnati Fringe Festival. It's the perfect time to find your way to Know Theatre (1120 Jackson, right next to the Gateway Garage), which is Fringe headquarters.

From CCM to New York City Opera

For several years Joshua Jeremian seemed to be onstage everywhere in Cincinnati. He was a regular in opera productions at UC’s College-Conservatory of Music, where he was pursuing a master’s degree and then an artist’s diploma (additional graduate-level training) as an opera singer. But he was glad to find performing opportunities with many Cincinnati perfroming arts institutions. In 2005 he played a pair of princes in Ensemble Theatre of Cincinnati’s holiday musical, Sleeping Beauty. (In fact, the big-voiced baritone was nominated for a 2006 Cincinnati Entertainment Award for his performance at ETC.)

I spent two-and-a-half hours watching the Acclaim Awards last night — 150 minutes with no intermission. Thanks to affable hosts Charlie Clarke and Mark Hardy (the well-dressed “scoundrels” of Dirty Rotten Scoundrels last September at The Carnegie), there was a lot of humor, but I put an emphasis on “a lot” as in “maybe too much.”

As I’ve written previously, the Acclaims offer some solid recognition of many of the things that constitute our local theater scene. But the awards program itself lacks discipline: If this had been a stage production at one of our local theaters, I wouldn't be the only critic saying, “Nice work, but it needs a lot of trimming.” And some thoughtfulness.

8 is the real-life story about two loving same-sex couples
living in California who want to get married but can't because in 2008 Proposition 8
took away the right for LGBT couples to marry in California.

Written by Academy-Award winner Dustin Lance Black (Milk, J. Edgar) and
directed by Kevin Crowley, this play is based on actual transcripts from the
Perry v. Brown trial. 8 flashes in and out of the courtroom while
also providing a glimpse into the lives of the average American
same-sex couple through the struggles of real-life couples Kris and Sandy and
Paul and Jeff.

Just like these couples, gay-rights
activists have been fighting for same-sex marriages across America for more than a
decade. Some progress has been made as gay marriage is now legal in nine states
and the District of Columbia, but many California residents feel left
out and are eager to resume same-sex marriage in their state.

According to studies from the Williams Institute at UCLA law school, there are
nearly 100,000 same-sex couples living in California and if given the
opportunity to legally marry, 24,000 would do so.

After being engrossed with all the drama of the courtroom and seeing
how the case affects the plaintiffs in 8, tune back into
reality as the U.S. Supreme Court is likely to announce a decision about
Proposition 8 today.

Tickets to "8" may only be purchased through the Clifton
Performance Theatre by calling 513-861-SHOW or clicking here. All
proceeds benefit Equality Cincinnati and the Human Rights Campaign.

After a long hot summer (well, it's still feeling like a
long hot summer), we have a full array of shows onstage in Cincinnati
for you to choose among. I've seen two of them so far: Good People at Ensemble Theatre Cincinnati and The Three Musketeers at the Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park.

ETC's production of Pulitzer Prize winner David Lindsay-Abaire's 2011 piece (this is the regional premiere of Good People,
which was nominated for a Tony a year ago) about a woman who falls off
the bottom of the employment ladder has enough humor to be entertaining
(especially with Annie Fitzpatrick in the central role of Margie and
Kate Wilford and Deb Girdler as her gossipy friends and bingo-night
comrades) and enough contemporary relevance to be thought-provoking.
ETC's D. Lynn Meyers is at her best staging naturalistic shows with
social meaning, and that's exactly what this one offers. It has a great
cast and flexible, attractive scenic design by the ever-creative Brian
c. Mehring. I gave it a Critic's Pick. Through Sept. 23. Review here. Box office: 513-421-3555.

I wanted to love The Three Musketeers at the
Playhouse (through Sept. 29), but its balance of humor and heart is out
of whack to my tastes. There's lots of adventure, hilarity and laughter
— especially some no-holds-barred swordplay — but the show tries to
hard to entertain that it misses out on the true emotion that should lie
beneath. I suspect many people will love this thrill-a-minute tale of
political intrigue and valor, loyalty and royalty in 17th-century
France, and perhaps it will evolve to deeper feelings as it runs. I love
new Artistic Director Blake Robison's desire to put appealing,
family-friendly work onstage, and he's using this production to show
what he means. I hope his approach gets a tad more texture and depth as
his tenure continues. Review here. Box office: 513-421-3888.

I haven't yet seen To Kill a Mockingbird at
Cincinnati Shakespeare Company, and their publicity says it's already
sold out its first-two weekends. So you might want to put that one on
your calendar for sometime before it wraps up (Sept. 30). In the
meantime, you might want to head to Washington Park on Sunday evening at
7 p.m. for a special free presentation of CSC's touring production of The Tempest.
It's a perfect piece for outdoor performance, set on an island with a
sorcerer and his lovely daughter and some shipwrecked nobles who are
responsible for his exile. Audience participation will be a key
component of this event, with the audience asked to create large-scale
effects by blowing bubbles, making waves with silk and generating sound
effects. Sounds like great fun. Music (by The Young Heirlooms) begins at
6 p.m. This is a good one to bring kids to see.

Also off and running this weekend is Cincinnati Landmark's production of Tennessee Williams' Cat on a Hot Tin Roof.
It's a classic drama of sexual tension and family strife, a bit heavier
fare than is usually found at the Covedale Center. It's a sign of the
company's ambition to be a full-fledged theater offering a wide range of
material. (Through Sept. 30.) Box office: 513-241-6550.

It could be argued that F. Paul Rutledge was the guy who laid the foundation. He passed away a week ago at the age of 91. Rutledge was a theater pioneer in Cincinnati, and many people who shaped what we have today were inspired by him.